The Deliciousness of a Nervous Breakdown
by Faith Elizabeth
Summary: Professor William Spike Edison has found himself in a very uncomfortable position: yearning for his TA, Buffy Summers. Will he get the girl? Or go crazy trying not to?
1. Chapter 1

Title: The Deliciousness of a Nervous Breakdown

Author: Faith Elizabeth

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: I own nothing! Joss is my lord and master!

Pop Quiz:

You are a young, reasonably attractive, fairly well-liked history professor at the University of Oklahoma. You find yourself in the terrible predicament of being attracted to your TA. What do you do?

A) Straighten up and fly right. While she's technically not YOUR student, she is A student. Students and faculty are never supposed to mix in the genital regions.

B) Pine away for her in secret, slowly driving yourself mad, until one day in life you snap and find yourself talking to the stapler.

C) Be a man and ask her out. What harm can one date do?

William "Spike" Edison mulled over the consequences of choice C.

'What harm _can _one date do?' he pondered, staring at her handwriting on one of the plethora of term papers strewn across his desk. 'Aside from getting me heckled by staff and students alike, fired, and barred from teaching ever again.'

"Christ!" he shouted into his empty office. "It's not like she's a child! She's at least 20! I AM NOT A PEDOPHILE!"

He glanced down at the stapler. It seemed to be nodding sagely back at him, encouraging him to follow his baser animal instincts.

His head thudded against the desk. 'Bollocks,' he thought, 'I'm already talking to the stapler. I might as well just…do it.'

"Lord knows you could use a date," the stapler chimed in. "And, I need some alone time with the hole punch! Get out of here!"

Spike lifted his head wearily. "So this is what it's like to go insane? Horny talking staplers telling me to risk my career for a 20 year old co-ed named," he winced, the name bitter on his tongue, "BUFFY!"

He glanced once more at the stapler, waiting for a witty comeback. It sat innocently, as inanimate objects tend to do.

He rolled his eyes heavenward. "I'm cracking up. I really am losing it! I'm disappointed that the STAPLER won't give me romantic advice!" His head thudded against the desk once more.

"Will someone please kill me?" he beseeched pitifully into the sheaf of papers on his desk.

He was surprised to hear a reply. At least, a reply that came from something other than that snarky bastard of a stapler—a stapler that seemed suspiciously closer to the hole punch than where he remembered placing it. A voice rang out into the stillness, puzzled yet amused at the same time.

"Uh…I don't think they'll give me credit if I off you, Professor. Plus, what will the rest of the faculty say? I'll get a reputation!"

His head shot up from the desk at the speed of light. The blood that had pooled there during his brief foray into despair rushed into the rest of his body and left him light-headed and slightly nauseated. Or maybe that was the knowledge that someone other than the stapler had witnessed his patheticness. That someone being Buffy, herself, made it all the worse. He wondered if he could discretely retch into the trash can without alerting any further suspicion.

He eyed the petite blonde in his doorway coolly, years of staunch British upbringing allowing him to keep all physical manifestations of his tumultuous emotions in check.

"Buffy," he began, inwardly cringing at his choice of nervous-breakdown-causing-material. She really wasn't more than a slip of a girl, long blonde hair and green eyes, all limbs, really. Not much meat to her, unlike his last girlfriend, Faith.

Wait! LAST Girlfriend! That implied that Buffy constituted "New Girlfriend," and Buffy was most definitely NOT any sort of girlfriend material!

Buffy stared at him, her eyes shining with obvious amusement. "Buffy…? Buffy what, Professor? From the way you're acting, I'm afraid you're going to ask me to poison your tea. On purpose, this time," she smiled, sheepishly.

Her first day as TA she was so eager to make a good impression that, upon learning he was British, she made it her mission to learn to make the perfect cup of tea. Her technique was flawless, ingredients meticulously selected and set out, and she was confident that this cup of tea would seal her way into his good graces. Unfortunately, the coffee mug she selected happened to be from the faculty lounge cabinet with an ant problem, and thus was lined with boric acid. All cups from this cabinet were thoroughly rinsed before use, a truth so universal that it was unspoken.

Unknowingly, with an eagerness almost frightening to bear witness to, Buffy handed Spike a cup of lethal tea. Luckily, for both of them, he noticed the mysterious blue ring around the lip of the mug just in time. He cocked a questioning brow at her.

"Ms. Summers, while I might not have been your first choice to aid, did you really have to go to such extremes to be reassigned?"

Mortified, Buffy began to stammer out an explanation, stumbling over her words in an attempt to convince him that ending his life was the last thing she intended to do.

"I just wanted to make you a nice cup of tea and I don't know what happened and omigod I'm so sorry! Please don't fire me, this will nev—" her ramble was cut off by a sharp bark of laughter. Her tear-filled green eyes met his twinkling blue ones, and that was that. They fell in love.

Of course, neither could admit that to themselves, let alone one another, and thus we rejoin our story, already in progress.

"No Buffy, I won't require any 'special' tea today. It hasn't come to that. How long have you been here, luv?" he inwardly blanched at the endearment, praying that, for once, she would just leave it alone.

No such luck.

"Luv, huh! Why Professor Edison," she batted her eyelashes prettily, "if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to seduce me…" His eyes widened, until she finished, "…into grading the other half of the term papers! If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times—that British charm won't work on me! You told the class that all papers would be graded evenly between us, 50-50, so that all grading is fair, and that's that!"

Spike breathed a sigh of relief. She had no idea he had lost his mind, and was crazed with lust for her. His secret was safe for the time being.

"Besides, what would the stapler do without you here? Finally get busy with the hole punch?"

Her laughter rang throughout the deafening silence of the room, as Spike's jaw dropped to the floor.

Oh. Bloody. Hell.


	2. Chapter 2

Pop Quiz:

You are a young, reasonably attractive, fairly well-liked Teaching Assistant in the history department at the University of Oklahoma. You are paired with the brand new Religious History of Europe Professor, William Edison. You find yourself in a bit of a pickle: you seem to have developed feelings for the young Professor. What do you do?

A) Keep your eyes, and hands, to yourself! While he's considered young by academic standards, he's at least 10 years your senior—AND A PROFESSOR! There are rules for a reason.

B) Never tell him how you feel, and start to stalk him, praying that he never discovers how truly twisted you are.

C) Ask him out for coffee. What harm can a cup of coffee do?

Buffy Summers sighed and stared at the napkin on which she had scribbled hastily the contents of her ever-busy mind. Option B was already in full swing, and it disturbed her just how easily she could blend into her surroundings without anyone noticing.

'Have I always been so invisible?' she frowned to herself. 'Is that why I have such terrible luck with men? They forget I exist!'

Quickly, she shook herself out of her burgeoning depression. After all, who cares if no one could see her? All the better to watch the Professor…

Watching the Professor turned out to be far more interesting than she originally thought possible. She figured, after a day or two of observation, he would reveal himself to be so boring/obnoxious/womanizing that her little crush would wither and die under the harsh rays of his true self.

That plan backfired like Chinese New Year. The more she saw of him, the way he mussed his hair when he was frustrated, or always set aside the shortest papers for her to grade, or pounded his head on his desk after yelling at his stapler—wait.

She thought the stapler thing was cute? All of her friends told her the stapler thing was weird. Even Willow, who tried so hard to defend everyone, was found saying, "He actually has _conversations _with his _stapler_? That's…do you think he might be schizophrenic?"

Buffy cupped her chin in her hand and contemplated her choices. Stalking him was doing no good. Every time she saw him, her ardor heated up a few more degrees, and she found herself staring at the crispness of his shirts, wondering if she'd ever get to see one crumpled on her bedroom floor.

That was not a healthy way to think in a work environment!

Ultimately, she decided it was time to buck up, be a man, and ask him out for coffee. Simple. Harmless. If he said no, she could always laugh it off and say she had some time to kill and would read a book instead. If he said yes, on the other hand…

'Faculty + Student – Hot sex?' she jotted under choice C, the quickly crossed it out, fearing someone would peer over her shoulder and think she was a pervert.

She chuckled to herself at the depth of her paranoia. Wasn't she just complaining that she was invisible? Who cares what invisible girls write on napkins?

Still, she crumpled the napkin in her hand and shoved it into her half-full cup of coffee, watching the ink blur into unintelligible blobs as it soaked with moisture. Dead men tell no tales, right?

She left Cate and went to see what the Professor was up to, something that she thought of constantly, and for a moment she was disgusted with herself.

'What kind of woman does this to herself?' she thought, angrily. 'I'll tell you who—a woman with no self-respect!'

Bitterly damning her lack of self control, she found herself standing outside his office door, and listened to him moan, "Someone please kill me!"

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Spike's head spun with a thousand questions, but his brain couldn't settle on just one, and sounds poured from his mouth in a somewhat idiotic fashion.

"I…wha…how…you…huh?" he babbled, kicking himself for his own stupidity. 'Of course she knows you're crazy,' he raged internally, 'the whole bloody world knows! And laughs!'

He shot a quick look at the stapler, making sure that it wasn't doing a Tango across his desk with the hole punch that only he could see. It just sat there, nestled between the hole punch and the paper clip holder, looking smug.

"Bastard," he whispered at it.

Buffy watched the emotions flit across his face: shock, embarrassment, rage, shock again, and finally, contempt. It was fascinating, for he normally kept himself so…smooth. Cold. His face rarely revealed more than the slightest amount of amusement or a flicker of irritation when a student obviously hadn't studied. Shock, embarrassment, rage—especially since it seemed to be directed at the stapler—all of these were new.

She abruptly stopped laughing as a new emotion filled her: Love. Deep, earnest, stalwart affection for this complicated, sexy, intelligent, slightly odd man. The intensity of it rocked her entire being and left her staring at him in silence.

'That is the man I want to marry," she realized, and felt slightly weak in the knees. 'I want to marry him and have 10 thousand of his fat, healthy babies.'

Spike looked up and found Buffy boring holes into him with her gaze.

'Great,' he though wearily, 'now she has proof I'm insane. She's looking at me like I make her want to vomit.'

'Holy crap,' Buffy was stricken with a flash of panic. 'I'm going to puke all over my shoes!'

Spike rose from his desk and approached Buffy slowly, not wanting her to think he was crazy AND violent. He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and inquired, "Buffy, luv, are you okay? You're looking a bit peaked and—"

He felt the warm moisture on his shirt a scant second before the smell hit him, causing bile to rise in the back of his throat.

'She…puked on my shirt!' he shot a bewildered glance down at the puddle forming on his feet. 'And my shoes.'

"Oh my God, I am _so_ sorry." Buffy sobbed and pulled back from Spike. "I have no idea why that happened, I _never _get sick, omigod…"

And with that, she ran from the room, in search of a shower, and her dignity.

Spike watched her go, tempted to follow until a voice called out, "Mate, you smell like death. Maybe you should shower before having a go at being 'Willy in Shining Armor'?"

"Shut up!" he spun and picked up the stapler, shaking it with a fierceness that surprised him. "Shut up! Shut up!"

He slammed the stapler down with all his might, and then stormed out of his office. Halfway down the hall he stopped, quickly turned heel and went back in.

"And the _name_ is SPIKE!" he roared, turned heel again and slammed the door shut.

The coffee pot nudged a packet of sugar and whispered, "Willy's been pretty high-strung lately. You think I should stop working for a while?"

"Only if you want to get thrown across the room," the sugar replied. "And look what happened to poor Cletus! All he was trying to do was help!"

Cletus perked up at the sound of his name being tossed around the office. He winced, and then snuggled closer to the hole punch.

"Baby, we got some time now…wanna check out my war wounds?"

You see, staplers consider every difficulty in life to just be an opportunity to get booty in disguise…

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Pop Quiz:

You have just covered the man of your dreams in your vomit. What is the appropriate 'I'm sorry' gift?

A) Dry clean his shirt. And polish his shoes. And then, pretend like it never happened, hoping to regain some modicum of s profession environment until the end of the semester.

B) Tender your resignation, along with a dozen red roses. Also, include a card that reads: "I'll always love you." Then, move. Preferably, to somewhere in Europe. _Eastern _Europe. Bratislava, anyone?

C) Dry clean his shirt, and polish his shoes. Say you're sorry. AND ASK HIM OUT FOR _COFFEE._

Buffy's shower did little to soothe away her fears. Her nerves were still standing on end; every time the towel caressed her skin, she jumped and then admonished herself for her idiocy. She knew she had to face him the following day, and the thought of it filled her stomach with an icy block of dread.

'He thinks you're a total spaz,' her conscience mocked, 'now he'll _never_ jump you! He'll be too afraid you'll pull another Linda Blair on him.' The voice paused. 'Unless, of course, he's into that sort of thing.'

Buffy scowled. Maybe the Professor wasn't the only schizophrenic one. Lately, that little voice in the back of her mind, that one that told her not to eat a WHOLE chocolate cake and that rent money was more important than any 'shoe emergency,' had gotten louder, and much more irritating. She found herself questioning its motives when it interjected, 'You know, maybe you should just call him and apologize. Over a cup of coffee.'

"Well, this is a change," Buffy said aloud, not caring if her roommates heard and thought she was crazy; if anything, they would be correct in their assumptions. "Normally, you try to shove me away from fun things. And humiliating things. Now you're encouraging a little bit of both?" She narrowed her brows, and eyed herself suspiciously in the mirror. "What _are _you up to?"

The voice chuckled and said, 'Only what your heart desires, m'dear. Believe it or not, this is all you.'

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Upon completion of his shower, Spike found himself amazingly awake and rejuvenated. He contemplated calling Buffy, to see if she was alright. After all, they had class tomorrow—if she was sick, he's have to go to her place tonight and pick up her half of the graded term papers! He went to reach for his jacket, ready to descend upon Buffy like a Guardian Angel, when he realized that 1) He had no idea where Buffy lived, 2) the poor girl was probably too embarrassed to see him right now and 3) he wasn't wearing any clothing.

He wondered when he had become such a blundering fool. He was 32 years old, for God's sake! Much too mature and wise to act like a lovesick puppy of 20. And a lovesick puppy of 20 was exactly what Buffy deserved; a man her own age, a classmate, a peer. Not a dirty old man lusting after her.

He sat on his bed and shook his head in disgust.

"When did I become so pathetic?" he asked his reflection in the mirror. "When did I turn into…my father?"

Spike's father had always been a playboy, for he was a man on a mission: to find the fountain of youth. And it seemed to Spike that his father thought the fountain of youth was found betwixt a lady's thighs—the younger the better. He remembered sitting up at night and listening to his mother sob in the next room, the loneliness eventually driving her to take her own life when he was 16. He never forgave his father for that, and had strived his whole life to be his exactly opposite: staid where his father flaunted propriety, intellectual instead of lecherous, respectful and aloof instead of cocky and conceited. The only bit of true rebelling, in the strictest sense of the word, that he ever did was right after his mother's death.

Spike, insane with grief and desperate for affection, he turned to brothels, hoping that the ladies of the night could fill the hole left in his heart. At 16, young William became a legend amongst the working girls of London, so much so that they began calling him "the Spike," for the way his thin hips pounded into you, it felt like he was attempting to drill to China—only in the most pleasurable way imaginable.

Eventually, "the Spike" became entangled with an exotic beauty, dark hair and eyes but skin so pale it was almost translucent. She was older than he was, not just in years, but in experience as well, and life had left her mind twisted and fragile in its wake. "The Spike" became "Spike, Drusilla's Dark Prince" and he would have remained so until his dying day—until Dru left him. One day, Spike came home and found all of her things gone, with only a note remaining. It read:

_My dear, sweet boy.  
I enjoyed you for a  
while, but my Angel  
has returned to me.  
Go and frolic in the  
light now. This world  
was never yours._

_Dru_

He cried for three days. Then he packed up his belongings, found his father, and demanded to be sent to university. His father, eager to get him out of the way (an almost grown, extremely handsome son around tends to cramp the style, you see), shelled out the money necessary, and Spike threw himself into his education like a drowning man clings to the last bit of boat he could find that wasn't covered in human remains or partially eaten by a shark.

Learning became his saving grace; knowledge lit the path through the dark and tangled web of his depression. Like a sponge, he absorbed all he came into contact with, and when done, he found that he could ring the information from his brains as easily as saying his name. Thus, he became a professor.

And thus, our story can continue…


End file.
